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Sunday, 23 March 2008

Easter Fire — Christ is Risen Indeed!

26 insomniacs at 5·50 in Great Missenden, not quite Dawn, as the clocks haven’t gone forward yet this year. Walking through the village afterwards, a dove (I kid you not) watched us go by from one of the cottages in the high street. If Candle light is a sign of Easter faith, it’s corny but notable that our candles guttered and occasionally blew out as the snow began to fall, but as long as we stayed together and re-lit from each other’s, we were able to carry the flame from our early bonfire all the way to the paschal candle in Church. Then the snow started in earnest... We are an Easter people. Alleluia is our song. Don’t know what the neighbours made of it, but one day they’ll understand!

Again the Light said, ‘Unlock!’Said Lucifer, ‘Who goes there?’A huge voice replied, the lordOf power, of strength, that madeAll things. Dukes of this dark placeUndo these dark gates so Christ comeIn, the son of heaven’s King.With that word, hell split apart,Burst its devil’s bars; no manNor guard could stop the gates swingWide. The old religious men,Prophets, people who had walkedIn darkness, ‘Behold the LambOf God,’ with Saint John sang now.But Lucifer could not lookAt it, the light blinding him.And along that light all thoseOur Lord loved came streaming out.

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Child of God by adoption and grace, husband of Lucy, father of five, jumped-up vicar (Area Bishop of Buckingham).
Born Edinburgh. Deacon 1979, Priest 1980, Bishop 2003. Cambridge MA, Oxford DPhil — ‘I am a doctor, but not the kind that helps people.’ I trained for ordained ministry at Wycliffe Hall. I have worked in various C of E contexts, urban and suburban, as well as in prison.